These are some of my ideas/vision I had for a mod but never got to it since I know nothing of modding D2 and would have to learn a whole lot to be able to pull this off. Maybe you'll find something you like and/or get some inspiration from this

This is a very long post! Sorry about that! No other way to explain all this in a short manner.

Some Gameplay Notes:

- You gain no attribute points or skill points on level up- Skill and Attribute points are gained via specific skill/attribute tomes and scrolls (Tome of Air for example) and the default quests and of course cube recipes- There are only normal, unique and set items- Items don't have tiers and their quality is based of the material they are made of (the basic fantasy stuff, dragon bone, mitril and so on...)- You tailor the normal items to your needs with cube recipes, reagents, skills ect.

1. Sources/Elements/Attributes

4 Elements- Fire, Earth, Air, Water

4 Non-Elements- Life, Death, Mind, Physical

2. Classes revised

Each class would have their default attributes replaced with the above mentioned list and the unlocking of skills would work much like in your mod the only difference being that each skill only has 1 level and gains in power as the required attributes raise in number(synergies)

The skill system would work like this once you choose the primary passive "sub-class skill" in a skill tree it unlocks the skills in that tree and locks all other skills in the other skill trees. the passive skill would grant you minor bonuses to the attributes needed for that skill tree.

Templars are warriors of Rathma trained in physical and mental combat and seem to have an insight into the fragile balance of life and death. The abilities they posses make them unique frontline soldiers in the struggle against evil forces.

II. Lich [ Water, Death, Earth, Life, Mind ] { Mana }

Priests who have reached the highest understanding of the Great Cycle of Being and have mastered death to the point they themselves became undead. Capable of raising the dead summoning nighmares from beyond and abilities that manipulate water to the point where enemies can feel the cold chill of death.

III. Cultist [ Death, Mind, Physical, Fire ] { Mana, Health }

Priests of Rathma who delve into the secrets of fire and death trying to uncover demonic powers for use against the Prime evils. As the saying goes fight fire with fire and the cultists do this well.

Paladin Class

I. Inquisitor [ Mind, Fire, Life, Air ] { Mana }

Some Inquisitors joined the rebellion of the new Order of Paladins also believing that fighting evil at the true source of corruption is the only way. Through training for combat and searching for demons they aquired some resistances to mind and fire as well as combat magic prowess much needed in battle against the demons.

II. Crusader [ Physical, Life, Mind, Water] { Stamina, Mana }

Same as the Inquisitors so did many Crusaders join the rebellion and traveled to the west to rid the world of the Prime evils. As true warriors of the light they rely on weapons and their faith to fight evil. Many are capable blacksmiths some are even priests.

III. Protector [ Physical, Life, Mind, Fire ] { Stamina, Mana }

Some Protectors still roam in the west helping where they can, providing their shield to the weak and the tip of their blade to the wicked. And now they find themselves in a greater battle agianst the Prime evils they call upon the holy fire of the heavens and use their mighty shield to smite evil.

Sorceress Class

I. Oracle [ Mind, Life, Water, Air ] { Mana }

Even a Zann Esu oracle had to venture out to fight the Prime evils. Their ability to calm the mind and understand Order and the mysteries of water and air will help face the great evil ahead.

II. Witch [ Fire, Earth ] { Mana }

If the oracles understand Order then the witches draw their power from Chaos using fire to burn all evil and earth to bury it. The witches call forth volcanic destruction and call upon the rage of fire at the same time they stand firm like a rock.

III. Renegade [ Death, Fire, Air, Physical ] { Mana, Health }

Much like Horazon and Bartuc the wish to gain power through demons is strong. The use of forbidden demonic magic grants powers otherwise frowned upon. They also had to learn melee skills to survive against the mage slayers. It's a dangerous game these ladies play.

Assassin class

I. Mage Slayer [ Mind, Physical ] { Stamina }

The primary job of a Mage slayer is to hunt for renegade mages and hence they need to be able to protect themselves from all kind of magic and the agility to quickly close te gap between them and their foe. Of course all these skills come in handy when they come across other evils that lurk in the world.

II. Demon Hunter [ Mind, Physical ] { Stamina, Mana }

Much like the mage slayer the demon hunter has to be able to resist demonic powers as well have physical prowess to handle close combat with all manner of creatures. It is good to have valor but one must also have his wits about to be able to venture into the lair of evil.

III. Shadow [ Death, Mind, Physical ] { Mana, Stamina }

Lurking in the shadow using tricks and traps is the tactical way to fight a battle. Hit and run tactics using all that is at your disposal makes sense does it not. Well shadows seem to think so.

Barbarian class

I. Shaman [ Air, Fire, Life, Physical ] { Mana, Stamina }

Much like their druidic brothers some barbarians learned how to attune with nature through their travels and harsh enviorment of Mt. Arreat. Their abilities should not be considered as magic but more of a calling upon nature itself using the primal energies around them.

II. Warrior Prophet [ Physical, Mind ] { Stamina }

Much like the three who now reside on top of Mt. Arreat as a guardians there are some barbarians who show exeptional skills in battle like they did. They are called warrior prophets and their prowess in combat is unmached.

III. Berserker [ Physical, Fire ] { Stamina, Health }

Berserkers thrive in the heat of battle letting out rage on their opponents even at the cost of their well-being. That's why they are well suited to battle the demonic hordes as one berserker said "The demons at least last long enough for me to enjoy it".

Amazon class

I. Mercenary [ Air, Water, Physical, Mind ] { Mana, Stamina }

As great seafeering people some Amazons traveled across the land in the search for coin and on the way gained skills in trading and worldly knowledge as well as remarkable combat skills from being a soldier of fortune for various employers. But now the soldiers for hire find themselves in the battle for a higher cause.

II. Ranger [ Life, Earth, Mind, Physical ] { Mana, Stamina }

Adept in fighting in the lush forests of their home these amazons use nature to the fullest and their instincts are as sharp as the animals that reside in those forests. The skills they possess in melee and ranged combat are something to be feared.

III. Priestess [ Air, Fire, Water, Mind ] { Mana }

Praying to the pantheon of gods they call upon their wrath. While they might not be so proficient in physical combat as other amazons they make do with their prayers for they believe in the power of the gods.

Druid class

I. Hunter [ Life, Earth, Water, Physical ] { Mana, Stamina }

Hunting in a pack is the first thing you see when observing wolves and that is what hunter druids try to mimic with their own pack, on the other hand it is also good if the hunters become the hunted so they also know how to go against predators using nature as a weapon in the case of the fight against the Prime evils the hunters are vicious demonic creatures so it's best to be prepared.

II. Warrior [ Life, Earth, Mind, Physical ] { Stamina }

Some druids still retained the thirst for martial prowess from their barbarian forefathers so they hone thier bodys much like the barbarians do. They draw power from the primal world around them.

III. Hermit [ Air, Life, Earth ] { Mana }

Druids who have secluded themselves into the forest are as one with it as the trees that grow there. Knowledge of the life around them and nature itself is also their weapon if need be.

Well that is a looooong post. If anyone actually reads all of it I'll be impressed.

I hope it at least sparked some ideas

Thank you

Last edited by ShiNiGaMi on 04 Oct 2011 17:20, edited 2 times in total.

- One big problem with items being the advancement factor (rather than attribute/skill pts at level-up) is duping--I had the same idea when I was removing level requirements from most of Immersion. I had considered making attribute/skill point potions for a short length of time, but decided against it.

- I'm a terrible person to ask about lore (which your skills reference). I could care less about the lore of Diablo, tbh. I rarely touch story-related stuff, unless I'm writing my own.

- Item materials is something I barely touch upon, but it could be done, and would be enjoyable. People should explore this idea more, imo.

- Having attribute lists unique to each class would require no small amount of code-editing to function correctly, but it's another fun idea.

- I'm a fan of all resources being desirable (another pain in the ass with the D2 engine) to all classes in one form or another.

- I'm not a fan of the whole "each skill tree is a class" schtick, and I don't understand why people are drawn to the idea. Classes are already classes. Further, most players see through this right away, and three "sub-classes" or whatever you'd call them end up being "melee sorcy", "ranged sorcy", and "spell sorcy" or what-have-you... There's plenty of room for lots of unique skills and if more mod authors would take the time to experiment they'd find that you can stumble upon some interesting stuff. My Bloodlust skill (Barbarian) is (originally) a product of just messing around to see if this-or-that would work or crash me for the 796th time. (If I don't crash D2 upwards of 50 times in a day, I haven't gotten much done.)

- Roles aside, you have some really good explanations for skills. Druid skills dealing with hunting, Necro skills dealing with life and death, etc. and these do matter a lot. Obscure skills leave a really bad taste. Tying elements to everything is quite interesting too.

I have some notes in a binder somewhere detailing a mod that your notes here remind me of, but it's also a mod I'll never make... this is testament to the fact that this game is fun to work with and nowhere near as explored as everyone seems to think it is.

- One big problem with items being the advancement factor (rather than attribute/skill pts at level-up) is duping

I don't know why anyone would dupe and ruin the experiance and since it's not a competitive format I don't get it. But still if someone wants to be 'that guy' they hey go ahead be a pony (insert profanity instead of pony)

- I'm a terrible person to ask about lore (which your skills reference). I could care less about the lore of Diablo, tbh. I rarely touch story-related stuff, unless I'm writing my own.

I'm not a lore buff myself either it's just that this is not meant as a super total conversion of everything and I kind of wanted the character design to fit into the Diablo universe so they seem viable for people who like the lore. I mean the skills and items you put into your mod aren't the least far-fetched in my opinion and fit in nicely too.

- Item materials is something I barely touch upon, but it could be done, and would be enjoyable. People should explore this idea more, imo.

I think so too it goes hand in hand with crafting imo. and since I would even "remove" magic and rare items from the drop pool. Making the embue quest reward and crafting your own items much more potent.

- Having attribute lists unique to each class would require no small amount of code-editing to function correctly, but it's another fun idea.

No, actually the attributes are the same for everyone they just replace the default ones, they are more like "masteries". Think of Physical mastery as the default str and dex attributes and Mind is energy, Life is vitality. Death and the other elemental "masteries" would also have an effect in some form or another. Water would have a minor effect on your mana, Earth on your defence, Air on your attack rating for example. Also all non-elemental and elemental masteries effect your resistances to these sources.

- I'm a fan of all resources being desirable (another pain in the ass with the D2 engine) to all classes in one form or another.

Yea me too it only makes sense in the case of Stamina as a resource you would get so much more out of the game like Stamina drain on monsters, Stamina potions, Stamina regen etc.Is it possible is the question?

- I'm not a fan of the whole "each skill tree is a class" schtick, and I don't understand why people are drawn to the idea. Classes are already classes. Further, most players see through this right away, and three "sub-classes" or whatever you'd call them end up being "melee sorcy", "ranged sorcy", and "spell sorcy" or what-have-you... There's plenty of room for lots of unique skills and if more mod authors would take the time to experiment they'd find that you can stumble upon some interesting stuff. My Bloodlust skill (Barbarian) is (originally) a product of just messing around to see if this-or-that would work or crash me for the 796th time. (If I don't crash D2 upwards of 50 times in a day, I haven't gotten much done.)

This is my opinion of this and why I thought this was good idea. Look at it this way if we take the 17 skills you managed to put in one skill tab and we could make it 18 if we moved or removed the close button so now we have 18 so lets see:

With the 1 point per level system, max. level of skills 20, and at lvl. 99 you have 4 - 5 skills maxed ( going out of memory here the numbers might be wrong this is for vannila LoD )

Positive:

+ This option gives you a massive skill pool to choose from and a wide variety of builds are available if played right

Negative:

- It can get chaotic for players and without a respec system it can get frustrating especially if there are new skills and you don't know what effect they have until you try them. I remember the first time I played D2 and how many times I had to restart a char. before I got it right with the skills

2. My alternative

7 chars. * 3 tabs = 21 unique chars. with 18 unique skills each

With 0 points per lvl. ( items ), max. level of skills 1, and the possibility to eventually unlock all 18 skills

Positive:

+ A better overview of skills at your disposal+ With all 18 skills unlocked you can use different skills / builds for different situations+ Making the switch weapon a viable mechanic ( switching from melee to ranged with a different skill set )

Negative:

- Not much diversity in the same class except for the play style- No combinig of skills with the other class tabs

There are of course many more +/- to each option but this is just an outline. All things aside I really think that 18 skills per class is more then enough most players use 1-4 skills to fight in my opinion. And in all cases some form of respec system is a must. Not easy to obtain of course just so you don't have to restart because you don't like the skills you choose and so on.

- Roles aside, you have some really good explanations for skills. Druid skills dealing with hunting, Necro skills dealing with life and death, etc. and these do matter a lot. Obscure skills leave a really bad taste. Tying elements to everything is quite interesting too.

I'll combine this with the sorc comment you made and explain the requirements for skills in a bit more detail.

The basic design philosophy behind the characters is as you said " melee,ranged,spell " but it is absolutely not so rigid lets take the sorc and use some default skills as an example for the req. system:

Think of the oracle as a jedi that can cast water,air and frost (water+air combo) spells. Almost no hard hitting abilities but more of crowd control and diversion with a summon or two. A class where your wits and tactics come into play. You can go melee or ranged play or just pure spell focus.

Now the witch is more of a standard blaster caster but with only two sources of damage fire and earth( physical dmg.) not counting weapon attack it can get dicey with immune monsters so the combo spells and a weapon with a 3rd source of dmg. is advisable.

Now the renegade can play any way you like with the combination of some unorthodox skills you wouldn't normaly find in a normal sorc. The spells and melee and ranged capabilities make this class more closer to the default necro than anything else.

The default skills are just to show how the requirements work and as a glimpse of the capabilities of the class not the actuall skills.

As for the description of the classes I did my best but the limited lore on the chars ( arreat summit site ) didn't give me much room but they could be done much better but don't think that's of super importance.

With the 1 point per level system, max. level of skills 20, and at lvl. 99 you have 4 - 5 skills maxed ( going out of memory here the numbers might be wrong this is for vannila LoD )

Positive:

+ This option gives you a massive skill pool to choose from and a wide variety of builds are available if played right

Negative:

- It can get chaotic for players and without a respec system it can get frustrating especially if there are new skills and you don't know what effect they have until you try them. I remember the first time I played D2 and how many times I had to restart a char. before I got it right with the skills

This really boils down to opinion. What is chaotic for one player is beautifully complex for the next. Further, your scheme above assumes a max skill level of 20, which is an optional decision on the part of the mod author.

ShiNiGaMi wrote:2. My alternative

7 chars. * 3 tabs = 21 unique chars. with 18 unique skills each

With 0 points per lvl. ( items ), max. level of skills 1, and the possibility to eventually unlock all 18 skills

Positive:

+ A better overview of skills at your disposal+ With all 18 skills unlocked you can use different skills / builds for different situations+ Making the switch weapon a viable mechanic ( switching from melee to ranged with a different skill set )

Negative:

- Not much diversity in the same class except for the play style- No combinig of skills with the other class tabs

These are some really heavy negatives. It again boils down to player preference though. I believe that option 1 has greater replayability.

Just so you know, I'm not arguing with you so much as I'm saying "don't fall in the pit you're walking toward." (The pit being 21 pseudo-classes.)

This really boils down to opinion. What is chaotic for one player is beautifully complex for the next. Further, your scheme above assumes a max skill level of 20, which is an optional decision on the part of the mod author.

Of course it boils down to opinion everyone has their preferences. The scheme is taking the default D2 value it has nothing to do with any mod. But you are right that every mod author decides his option for skill lvl... It's just (this is my opinion) that raising the skill lvl does only 1 thing it reduces the number of skills you will have maxed out at the end. So then the max char level or the points per lvl have to be raised so you can get maybe one more skill in there.

These are some really heavy negatives. It again boils down to player preference though. I believe that option 1 has greater replayability.

Not much diversity negative right. This is due to the 1 point per skill sytem because eventually you will unlock all 18 and if a friend is playing the same class type he can unlock the same 18. Then both will have the same skills the only difference being the play style. As for replayability it is debatable since in the second option you get to play the same char guarantied at least 3 times from start.

Just so you know, I'm not arguing with you so much as I'm saying "don't fall in the pit you're walking toward." (The pit being 21 pseudo-classes.)

Calling them pseudo classes is a bit much since in D3 each class has about 20-25 skills (without runes of course) and the default LoD has 30 per class so 18 is not that low skill count for a class to have so in this regard they can be treated as proper classes. Of course 54 beats 18 in almost everything, diversity, choice..., but it also comes with some problems like:

1. From such a large pool there are bound to be underused, underpowered or OP skills

2. Balancing them to work together in some form or another is I suspect a nightmare

3. Most players find the 5,6 skills that work well against monsters and stick to them

You have some fun design ideas here.

I hope it didn't come across wrong this post wasn't meant like "You have to do it this way!" not at all I posted it in admiration because you brought back nostalgic feelings of D1 to D2 and are doing a remarkable job. So when I posted this I thougt to myself "what will he think of this?", "will he find anything he likes?", "He might get an awesome idea". It is never known where new ideas could come from right?

I guess you had enough of me so I won't be bothering you with this anymore. I will keep playing the mod and providing bug reports.

ShiNiGaMi wrote:I guess you had enough of me so I won't be bothering you with this anymore.

On the contrary, I appreciate your post here, although it's not often that I'm lacking ideas.

If my answers seemed short, it's because I'm busy modding! =) Further, the internet isn't exactly a place where people are loved for their faults--so I tend to keep dialogues simple and manageable anyway.

...So, 54 skills:

ShiNiGaMi wrote:1. From such a large pool there are bound to be underused, underpowered or OP skills

It's the mod author's job to avoid this pitfall. And to some extent, players need to except that perfect balance isn't a reality, and challenge themselves to use underpowered skills.

ShiNiGaMi wrote:2. Balancing them to work together in some form or another is I suspect a nightmare

This is absolutely true, but it's undoubtedly worth the effort. The more connected a "web" of features in a mod, the more varied and involved the gameplay becomes.

ShiNiGaMi wrote:3. Most players find the 5,6 skills that work well against monsters and stick to them

I don't find this to be problematic. I think that players tend to choose a small group of skills per character. It doesn't necessarily mean they won't play the same class again with a different group of skills. (Eg. Melee Sorc, Fire Sorc, Cold Sorc, Hybrid Ltng-Fire Sorc, Jav Sorc, etc.)

Anyway, if I find in the future there's a hole in my skill tree I can't quite find the inspiration to fill, I'll be sure to come back to this thread. =)

On the contrary, I appreciate your post here, although it's not often that I'm lacking ideas.

Thank you for your kind words sir. I was in no way implying that you lack ideas far from it. It's just I had this file that said D2Ideas if I ever were to venture into the den of modding. But fact is what I had in mind even a veteran modder would have a hard time to create so the chance of me doing anything on the list is below 0,1 % =). So I thought if this can help even a bit I might as well post it.

If my answers seemed short, it's because I'm busy modding! =) Further, the internet isn't exactly a place where people are loved for their faults--so I tend to keep dialogues simple and manageable anyway.

Short? Why short not at all. I don't understand exactly what you meant with loved for their faults but I'm not a 10 year old kid and I expect neither are you and having a constructive discusion is a normal way of doing things at least in my book.

It's the mod author's job to avoid this pitfall. And to some extent, players need to except that perfect balance isn't a reality, and challenge themselves to use underpowered skills.

That's a given but that is also the reason why I like the 3 classes in 1 char system. I think that with 18 skills it's much easier to balance and make all of them effective and usable and make the whole class more viable. But of course there would still be things that don't work like they should.

Anyway, if I find in the future there's a hole in my skill tree I can't quite find the inspiration to fill, I'll be sure to come back to this thread. =)

If you wish I could write down some of the actual skills for classes I had in mind. Maybe for a specific char. if it would help just say the word.